


Feast Your Eyes

by paperandsong



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Baking, Christmas, Feminism, Gen, Lussekatter, Martyrdom, One Shot, POTO Advent Calendar, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Saint Lucia, Swedish traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28054761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperandsong/pseuds/paperandsong
Summary: Christine wakes up early to bake and celebrate Luciamorgon with Maman Valerius. Together they contemplate the martyrdom of Saint Lucia and the mystery of the Angel of Music.Pre-Leroux, canon compliant. Written for Day 13 of timebird84's 2020 PotO Advent Calendar.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 15





	Feast Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinyfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyfire/gifts).



Christine rose from her bed long before sunrise and padded sleepily into the kitchen. She lit the oven and pulled down an old recipe book from a shelf. She cracked it open to a page marked with a red ribbon; recipes for Luciamorgon, written by the hand of Maman Valerius’ own mother, and brought from the old country long ago. Its tattered pages were heavy with the nostalgia of mornings past and the expectation that such traditions will go on forever.   
She did not need the book; these were recipes written across her own heart. But she liked to trace the handwriting with her fingers, smudged with ancient butter and flour, and to stir up her own memories. She liked to think that her late mother had also woken up early on December thirteenths to pull out the same ingredients and to follow the same steps. The echo of this ritual was a comfort to her.  
She yawned as she set the kettle on the stove and pulled out the sugar, the butter, the flour, the yeast, the eggs, the milk. She reached far into the back of the pantry for a little bottle of saffron threads, neglected all year long until this dark morning. A sprinkle of cinnamon, a crush of cardamom. For the lussekatter buns, she steeped the saffron in milk, she kneaded the yellow dough, and shaped it into buttery swirled S shapes, pinned with currants on either end. She pressed an angel-shaped metal cutter over the thinly rolled pepparkakor dough, inhaling the ginger and clove with deep satisfaction. As the buns and biscuits baked in the oven she went back to her room to dress.   
She struggled to pull her arms through the tight sleeves of the same white dress she had been made to wear since she was a just a girl. She had grown considerably in her bust and hips since it had first been made for her; she did not bother to try to button up the back. It was impossible. Maman Valerius knew it was impossible. But it so delighted her to see Christine wear that same dress, year after year, that she wouldn’t dream of complaining. She dutifully tied the red sash around her waist. The white of innocence, the red of martyrdom.   
Just moments before dawn, Christine arranged the cat-eyed lussekatter and angel-shaped pepparkakor on a tray along with two cups of coffee with milk, and a small lit candle. She lit another four white candles and carefully set them in the wreath of evergreen she had woven the day before. She settled the glowing crown into her halo of loose and unruly hair. She delicately lifted the tray, careful not to tip her flaming head too far forward. She glided across the floor as lightly as a snowdrift, making her way to Maman’s room. She stood outside the door and sang, 

_Natten går tunga fjät rund gård och stuva;_  
_Night walks with a heavy step round yard and hearth;_

She nudged the door open with her elbow. The dim room filled with candlelight as she entered. There was Maman, sitting up in her bed, her long white braid hanging over her shoulder. She was waiting eagerly for this blazing vision of Christine. 

_Kring jord, som sol förlät, skuggorna ruva;_  
_Around the earth, forlorn by the sun, shadows are brooding;_

The old woman clasped her hands together, her eyes glistening with tears.   
“Oh, Christine! You are an angel - truly, an angel shining on me from heaven!”  
Christine continued to sing, her voice high and sweet, as she used to sing when she was only a girl,

_Då i vårt mörka hus, stiger med tända ljus, Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia!_  
_But there in our dark house, arising with her burning candles, Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!_

She slowly walked towards the bed, allowing Maman to take in the holy sight of her. With each dazzling step she drove all darkness from the room. Truly, Christine was the daughter Maman had never had. And she had played this role of Lucia bride far longer than any other daughter would have tolerated. Perhaps somewhere in her heart, Christine knew this would be the last year.   
She set the tray carefully on the bed. Maman pushed back the blankets and patted the place beside her. Christine first took off the candle crown and set it on the small table near the window. They had a laugh remembering the time several years ago when Christine’s hair had caught fire after wearing the wreath for too long. It took days to scratch out the melted wax from her scalp.  
“Thank you, my child,” Maman said, nibbling on a lussekatter. “You are so good to me.”  
“It is you that are good to me,” Christine responded, kissing the old woman on the cheek. Tears rolled slowly down her wrinkled skin. “Maman! Don’t cry.”  
“It is just - I can almost feel them with us. My dear husband, your dearest father.”  
“I know. I can feel them too.”  
Maman rubbed her eyes and shook her head with a sigh.  
“It is almost seven-thirty! Shouldn’t you be leaving for the Opera soon? Won’t you miss your voice lesson? Won’t your teacher scold you?” She said ‘teacher’ with a knowing glance that made Christine's heart tighten in her chest. They both knew he was no mere teacher.  
Christine blushed.  
“I told him that I would miss my lesson today. You have me for the whole morning.”   
“Oh, I am sure he was not pleased to hear it!”  
“Why, Maman, he was very understanding. He finds it good and proper that a daughter should tend to her mother on this, the Feast of Saint Lucia.”  
“It is a good and a proper thing, my child. The Angel of Music knows these things. Shall I read from my book? Hand it to me, if you will.”  
Christine went and found the ornately illustrated book of the lives of the saints, also brought over from the old country. Maman turned to the story of Saint Lucia and read aloud, as she did every year. Christine took a mouthful of pepparkakor and nestled deeper into her place in the bed. She tried to keep her eyes away from the brightly colored image of Lucia carrying her own eyes on a silver platter. 

_During the Diocletian persecution of the good Christians, there was a maiden of Syracuse by the name of Lucia. Even as a young girl, the light of Christ shined brightly within her._  
_As Lucia’s father had perished years before, the two women were alone and vulnerable in the world. Despite her faith, Eutychia arranged for Lucia to marry into a wealthy pagan family. Lucia wept with grief. No, mother, she cried. Let my dowry be distributed among the poor. I shall never marry here on earth for I am the bride of Christ and my husband awaits me there. Reluctantly, Eutychia agreed, for she could see the light that shined within her daughter. She gave Lucia her dowry, a host of riches and jewels. The maiden took to visiting the prison in the dark, to bring food and comfort to the men that languished there. She wore a crown of candles upon her head so that she might see through the darkness and keep her hands free to fill with alms._  
_But gossip reached the ears of her jilted betrothed. He was told that Lucia had broken their engagement because she had found an even more wealthy patron of far nobler birth. In his jealousy, he denounced Lucia as a secret Christian to the Roman magistrate, Paschasis . Paschasis ordered Lucia to burn a sacrifice to an idol of the Emperor. To which Lucia replied, I would rather burn myself than to burn a sacrifice to a false idol. In his anger, Paschasis ordered the defiant maiden defiled in a brothel. To which Lucia replied, You could lift my hand and rub it against your idol and still I would be guiltless in the eyes of the Lord, who knows me and knows that you can defile my body but you can never defile my heart._  
_When the Roman guards came to take Lucia away, to have her maidenhead defiled, they found that she was immovable. Even when they tied a team of oxen to her waist by a rope, even then, they could not move her from her mother’s home. When they could not take her to the brothel, they decided to burn her. They built a pyre around her feet, but it would not light. In frustration, they gouged out her eyes - those eyes that burned with the light of Christ inside! They slit her throat, that throat as pure as that of any spring lamb. And so the virgin Lucia died a martyr for our Lord. The angels sang as she entered heaven and the good Lord restored her eyes, more beautiful than those she had possessed here on earth. For she was truly the light of his own eyes._

Christine hated the story.   
“It isn’t fair that she had to die,” she said bitterly, though her mouth was full of sugar.  
“No. There is nothing fair about the lives of the saints. They have all suffered unjustly in one way or another. It is a great burden to be born a saint.”  
“I do not remember any male saints dying because someone forced them to marry some pagan princess.”  
“I am sure there is at least one.”  
“But there are countless maiden martyrs. Do it please him, then? For us to suffer on his behalf?”  
“No, Christine. Our Lord suffers along with us. The tears we shed were his to shed first.”  
The old woman had become very serious. “No one is asking the Lucia bride to be a martyr. Only to carry light in the darkness.”  
Christine was chastened. She had not meant to antagonize.   
“I believe I am much like Lucia.”  
“Indeed you are, my child. The light of Christ shines brightly from within you.”  
“No, I meant only that I shall never marry.”  
“Oh! You cannot mean that. Surely, you will find yourself a good husband. One who will love you as much as I do. For one day, I will no longer be here with you. No, no. Do not say that, Christine. You must find someone to look after you. What of the Vicomte de Chagny? Don’t you ever see him at the Opera anymore?”  
“Oh, I see him up there in his brother’s box. But he never looks at me. I do not believe he remembers me at all. But I could never marry him. I could never marry anyone. Then I would never hear the Angel again.”  
“Is that what the Angel has told you?”  
“Yes. He has told me that if I should ever marry, he would have to return to heaven and I would never hear his beautiful voice again,” she said sadly.   
The old woman grew very quiet.  
“Perhaps Our Lord has a greater calling for you, Christine, than to be a wife. Perhaps he intends for you to devote your life to music, and music alone. To be a bride to no earthly man, but the bride of music itself.”  
“Do you think so, Maman?” Christine asked wistfully. She was excited by the idea that her destiny might be great and divinely written.   
“I think you should listen to your Angel. He will know what is best for you.”  
  
Christine changed out of her Lucia gown and went to the Opera later that morning so that she would not be late for rehearsals. A part of her wished that the Angel would come to her, despite that she had missed her lesson. When she stood in his invisible presence, he blessed her with a warmth she found nowhere else. She regretted even one hour lost. But he did not make himself known to her that day.   
In the evening, Christine served mulled wine with dinner. Maman drank too much and retired early, but Christine took her warm and fragrant cup out onto their narrow balcony to watch the people walking along the street below. It was quite cold and she pulled her coat tight around her body as she leaned slightly over the railing.   
Thoughts of Lucia and her bloodied eye sockets had haunted her all day. Christine wondered now how the saint’s story might have been different had Lucia agreed to marry the pagan bridegroom. Could they not have become friends, like Saints Cecilia and Valerian? Could she not have taught him the love of Christ better as his wife than as a martyr? They could have learned to love each other somehow. There had to be some way for Lucia to survive her own story.   
Christine shook her head angrily. But why should any woman lose her maidenhead to a man on the mere hope that her love might be enough to save him? Why should she have to save him?

Her ears pricked up at a sad sound in the distance. Music, from directly above, but far away, as if from the clouds. Or maybe only as far as the rooftop. She turned and looked up towards the sky overhead. The streetlamps dimmed the light of the stars, but she could just make out the westerly motion of Freya’s cat-drawn chariot. A violin whined a melody so faint it could not be named. Had her Angel come to say goodnight? Her pulse quickened in her ears. If she could have no earthly husband, might she really be wed to the music itself? She listened for a while and then the cold began to bite at her fingertips and the music faded away and it was time to go to bed. She looked into her empty cup and smiled.   
Inside, she placed the last lussekatter and a fresh cup of hot glögg onto a small tray and took it out onto the balcony. She kneeled to place the tray on the floorboards and stayed there a moment to whisper a little prayer,  
“Oh Angel of Music, sent from my father in Heaven, I do not know that angels take offerings in the way of the saints. An angel is not a saint. But I offer you these in thanks for your music. And for your lessons. And for your arrival into my life. I thank my Lord every day that you have finally come to me. Please, tell my father I love him.”   
Christine tossed about in her bed that night, straining to hear movement on the roof or the floorboards of the balcony. In the morning, she found the tray quite empty. The cup was dry. She turned her face to the sun and threw a small laugh of delight up to heaven.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday season!


End file.
